Finding You
by In-My-Secret-life
Summary: Edward’s world is blasted apart by the occurrence of his worst nightmare. With Bella gone, he runs to a familiar face to beg release… but the entrance of this character back into Edward’s life turns both their already fragile worlds upside down.


**Hi there...**

**this is my first ff so please read&review and tell me what you think. I don't mind brutal honestly btw... it's more useful that false flattery... not that I mind flattery ;) Thanks for reading, please let me know what you think :) Don't forget to review XD**

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**Full Summary:**

**Edward Cullen. Beautiful, good and indestructible- at least until the one thing that could destroy him comes to fruition. With Bella gone, and in more ways than one, Edward cannot go on- he wants nothing but death. Until something happens to inevitably motivate his grim existence... and he is forced to postpone his final passage and hunt out the truth, uncovering a dark and horrific secret. As Edward staggers determinedly on through his mission in this hellish world, the longing to find Bella again is obstinate, and he must fulfil it- whatever it takes. As impossibly alone as Edward feels, his path becomes vitally intertwined with another grieving soul. His initial hope at release metamorphoses through time to present an array of different characters, but what is Irina really? Friend? Nurse? Traitor? The two mourners' ugly predicaments draw them together, but as the wicked intentions of the world unveil themselves… the two find themselves further apart than Edward could possibly have foreseen.**

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Tyrant haystacks lay claim to many a needle_

_weep for this needle if you like, _

_little things are lost or camouflaged_

_without the will to fight_

_But do not pause to waste your tears _

_on what is lost that you hold dear_

_for lose a diamond in a mine _

_when no other will do_

_no precious thing cannot be found_

_if it is tied to you._

If I fail in this endeavour, I am nothing. If this goes wrong, my entire existence has been a product of some monstrous, diabolic plot; how appropriate for a monster like me. But no, I cannot let evil triumph over good in such a classically evident way... no one could deny the evil in one responsible for the death of an angel. Oh God no... I cannot let it. If there is a God of any sorts... if there is a Satan that would answer my petition in exchange for my soul- if a monster has a soul... I will deliver! If I cause my soul to rot by offering the lives of the other six billion inhabitants of this wretched planet… in exchange for one kiss from her, I would become that beast...and without the capacity for regret! I have destroyed her enough... I have planted the seed of a compulsory path of blood within her... I have already robbed her of one life! Do not let me steal this alternative from her too! Surely I am not so terrible!

Oh God Bella... even in this desperate state... so beautiful. Look at you! Naked... bruised... bleeding... dying… but so beautiful. Please heart... please beat one reassurance for me! The one sound in the world that makes any sense! No please... I know you're exhausted! I know how weak you've become! But please... if you ever had to try it's now! Please Bella... please don't leave me here... it's so black here Bella… Please... you just awoke me from that coma...please don't sentence me to return!

"Edward." The whisper barely penetrates my shell of excruciating concentration and mounting terror...

"Edward. It's been over an hour."

"No! Alice! What are you... just get out! Just get out! You're distracting me!"

Her eyebrows droop sadly as she swallows... and turns slowly…sinking away into the shadows.

For a second I want to call her back…to do something…to…to…I'm so alone now… without the best companion that was the thud of Bella's delicate heart… Jacob is gone…Jacob. Oh why could she not have loved him more than me? Why could she not have just been kind to herself for once!? This would never have happened. Before he'd left…I'd heard his thoughts…he had given up…his last glances at her… they had not been at Bella…but a corpse! How could he let himself think that way… how could he be so stupidly pessimistic at such a crucial time? The image of his face before he left slinks menacingly back to me… He didn't seem to be present... his eyes vacant.... his posture statuesque... he lips a tight line... but no! He was wrong…the image sways me for a second… I must get back to Bella! What am I doing?

She's cold... she's so cold... but I had prepared myself for that. She's is going to become like me... I've known for a while now that that warm softness would be something I would have to detach myself from... but...this is not right. Her eyes are half open... and... they're not my Bella's eyes. I can't see her in them any more... where is my wife? It's as if someone has uprooted the Eden I saw out of my window each day... and the window remains...but I cannot see the garden anymore... No. I'm not going to give up that easily... I just need to inject the venom into the right place... where... Oh God... She's covered... her entire body... a map of my dental records... I try again...a last flash of white flesh on her neck... it's hard....cold...cold and stiff... but not like mine... not like she was supposed to be now...hard...but mortal...hard...but still so hopelessly destructible...even more than usual. No... no... please no... and... I no longer taste that tantalising wine of her blood... No. Surely the day that Bella Swan's vein's run dry... the ocean beds must follow… without blood in Bella's veins... The rivers of purpose in my life must evaporate instantly! I turn desperately, hysterically… for someone to come! Where is Carlisle? Why do they think I can do this alone? Why can I not do this? Why won't she wake up?!

"No." I fight to locate my dry, rasped voice.

"No…no"

"No."

I'm shaking my head viciously...willing the clouds to open at my desperate, wretched command and pour back into my arms the blood they've just claimed... realising the mistake they've made...

She's so cold... so cold... and... oh no. No. No!

She's Bella... Bella can't just... she can't just... Bella is different to everyone I've ever met... so maybe she's different physically too... maybe she'll just... sit up... sit up and kiss me... and tell me that I don't have to go there... I don't have to go to my own custom made hell… creeping steadily closer with each scalpel-like second ticking blood-thirstily onto my brain. She's Bella! She survived carrying my blood-drinking spawn... devouring her from the inside for the last few weeks... that's not the sort of person who would let ... death... conquer her.

If I overcame it then surely someone as perfect as Bella Swan should be given at least a thousand eternity's at her disposal. I bite her again… catching sight, as I return from her thigh, of the clock I've been adamantly avoiding… shock whips me like a fired iron rod… three hours… I know everything's against me now. But I love her… and that's more important than medical science! So… surely my love can conquer something as inconsequential as…I love her! And she loves me! And… even though people love… and lose… people don't love like I love her. No one is like us! I've spent the last seventy odd years defying medical science! Defying history! Doing the apparently unprecedented! I love her too much to lose her. Bella wake up… Bella… I wouldn't die on you… please Bella.

The clock interrupts me again…. oh no… what use is an eternal future if the past has taken all that mattered... that thought chills me…eternity…with each millisecond grinding at my brain like the fangs of a thousand poisonous snakes. And then the clock again… just as my teeth sink into Bella's steadily stiffening calf… why is this happening… this is not in the plan? Her chest is so black from my ferocious pleading with her still heart…but… it hasn't darkened for a while now… no... I know what it means if she isn't bruising… I need her blood to pump again! I won't let her give up. Daylight is seeping into the room now… sly… mocking… each tiny floating speck of dust illuminated by the light seems to taunt me… seems to spit at me…

"Too late."

But dust is dust. What does dust know?

Abruptly… I feel two hands grip my shoulders. I start… twisting manically on the spot… my crazed eyes widening at the unusual shock of an unforeseen advance. But I had been totally and utterly distracted by my purpose… nothing could touch me but Bella. Just Bella. Bella alone mattered now.

"Carlisle."

His face is strained, white, I mean more than usual, sad, and something else is there too… guilt?  
"Carlisle. Thank God. Carlisle… I can't … I can't do it… Carlisle… fix her… please Carlisle. Carlisle… come on… there's no time! You need to fix her now!"

"Edward…" He starts…

"No Carlisle! You don't understand… we can talk later… we need to help Bella now…she's…you need to wake her up!"

"Edward… don't go there… I'm so sorry…"

"Shut up Carlisle! Carlisle do something… do something!"

"Come on Edward. Don't go there! Don't let yourself… it'll just make it harder…come on…don't stay here now" He's shouting… I think… but his words sound so distant. And…now he's gripping my shoulders again… and suddenly I feel ridiculously weak… weaker than I've felt in a long time…He's pulling me away from Bella… I don't understand… I can't afford to be weak now.

"No Carlisle… you don't understand! She's not… it hasn't… Bella! Carlisle it hasn't worked yet… I need your help!"

I grab onto the door frame viciously trying to shake my father off… he doesn't get it… why won't he listen? He's Carlisle… I can always rely on him! How can he let me down now? The one time I need him more than ever!"

But he doesn't let me go… he maintains his vice-like hold on me. What is he doing? I need to be with my wife… not dragged from her side when she needs me the most! I can't let him do this… if I have to hurt him…

I summon every ounce of strength I have left… and hurl myself backwards into the wall. And Carlisle, having gripped me from behind, slams into it and I feel a shower of paint and concrete flakes descend upon us both. But he still doesn't see… and he still doesn't back off…  
"I'm warning you Carlisle…" I snarl at him furiously.

But he doesn't flinch… he shows no sign of anger at my attack… all I recognise in his eyes is that same sympathetic gloom he had greeted me with…when I'd been relieved to see him. When I'd thought my lifeline had finally arrived… but what he was doing now…I simply couldn't comprehend.

He's stood in front of me… one hand enough, in my state of current exhaustion, to hinder my bid for the door to the place he has just forced me from. But my conviction is weakening… my urgency to return…the importance of being there…it's slowly being consumed by a flame of dawning comprehension… a flame so terrifyingly…

"Edward, come on. I'm… I am sorrier than I can possibly express… but, it's happened. We knew… we always knew it was a possibility. Edward… she knew too, Bella… she made that decision…and no one could have swayed her… she knew the potential consequences." I hear him… but it's as if the speakers have come slightly loose from the stereo… and his tone is too low… his words merge into each other, muffled… as if someone has thrown the stereo under water…

"Carlisle… Bella, we can help her… we can make her strong like us... save her." I plead weakly with him.

"Edward. She's dead. You did everything possible to save her. But we couldn't."

"No… Carlisle… we can bring her back."

"Edward. Stop. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. But you know she's gone… Edward." His voice washes distantly over me, soft and gentle, but his words still feel like they were created for the sole purpose of inflicting unimaginable pain, each, its own specific instrument of torture.

"Carlisle…please… I _have _to bring her back… please just let me try… you don't understand…" I sob quietly… but… something is stifling my urgency.

"Edward. I know. But listen to me," his hands clutch my face either side and force me to look straight into his pained, forceful eyes.

"She's dead Edward. Bella is dead. I'm so… so sorry." I can see how the words hurt him... how his eyes fill with sorrow as I flinch away from them.

The flame that had begun growing upon Carlisle's return seems to flare up inside me…searing through my heart… fogging my brain with its merciless black smoke, threatening to engulf me.

"No Carlisle. Oh no…"

I can feel myself submitting to the terrifying fire… the wicked daemon of realisation… my knees are beginning to buckle…but why? How? I don't have a physical limit! I could run forever and never tire! Carlisle firmly slides his hands under my arms to steady me. But still… nothing makes any sense. And still the flame spreads… no pain is comparable to this... none. The only thing that flares dimly in my memory, but minimised considerable by the revelation of this new previously unimaginable agony… is that of new venom surging furiously through my veins- changing me… the venom that should now be coursing through Bella's veins. But nothing is coursing through Bella now… just… nothing.

And the flame grows… surely a mighty fire now! Each tongue licking the ghosts of what's just happened cruelly into me…Carlisle… Bella... nothing. Because… although it is the most ridiculous senseless sentence in the world… although I know that to string such words together- to unite the first and the last is the single most crude taboo imaginable, although it is the only thing that could really destroy something practically indestructible- Bella is dead.

"I… killed her Carlisle" my strangled whisper chokes through the furnace.

"I… killed… Bella" I gawp… still trying to decipher my own words.

"No Edward! Don't…" Carlisle, still forcing me to look at him, ascertains…stress and fear etching his face… But he knows as well as I do the truth.

"Come, Edward. Don't stay here" he's whispering, his eyes glazed over now.

"No… Carlisle…. what…. what am I going to… I've… I've killed… why did I? Why didn't I…" I can feel a lump in my throat swelling uselessly... nothing to squeeze from my empty eyes... nothing physical to fall down my gross, cold, hard face… how epitomising of what I am… monstrously useless… I can't protect her now! What am I without that? My life is- was… dedicated to loving and protecting _her. _And now she's gone somewhere totally beyond my protection… Gone somewhere beyond anyone's reach… gone.

What am I doing? Why am I still here? I need… I need to get to her… I need to somehow breach the stupid barrier that I've let fall between us… I'm not going to let death get in the way of what me and Bella have! I need to get to her… she needs me. She's just gone through more pain than anyone should ever have to endure… pain perhaps only beaten by the agony of watching her suffer it. And that was the last thing Bella knew… pain… and all she wanted… all she wanted was to live forever with me and… and…and… that; her murderer. Her gross little murderer… the spitting image of it's evil accomplice… of me. My daughter… oh God… but I couldn't father something that did that… I couldn't! Even though I was just as terrible as she was… worse even… I had created the monster! I was Frankenstein… she was just the little freak product of my curiosity. It had been Bella who had wanted it… Bella who had suggested it… but if I said that I hadn't wanted her… wanted her desperately ever since I… it would have been a laughable lie. Of course I was curious… of course I wanted her… but I knew! I knew it was too dangerous… but I was selfish… and now all I have is a monster and a corpse.

"Carlisle… I'm sorry… I have to go… I have to go to Bella," I breathe roughly forcing myself to look at him. There's no point in lying to Carlisle… and anyway… it's not like this is totally unprecedented… they all know from the last time I thought… when I thought… they all know what my only path would be in this situation. And this time its real… this time there is no possible way of escaping it… this time… the only way that Bella is going to slam into me, and salvage my shredded soul… is through me going to her. He looks at me, sadly, seriously… but he doesn't argue.

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry I'm not stronger." I look into his heavy eyes… knowing I owe him more than this… but knowing that my limit has been reached… I can't stay.

"What will you do?" he whispers.

I squint at him… slowly trying to climb around his words… I can't think.

"I don't know… I… I don't want to give you any trouble with the volturi… I'll try and find other… means." I say… his image still hazy.

"I'm so sorry Carlisle… tell the others I'm sorry… don't bother to struggle not to hate me… I'm sorry."

"Edward…" his voice is higher than usual… "Edward… we can help you… We're all here…we'll help you."

I take one final regretful glace at my remarkable father before soaring down the stairs and out the front door… not stopping to take in anyone or anything. As I reach the edge of the trees I hear someone running behind me…I turn to see Carlisle again.

"Edward," he's pleading with me… Oh God Carlisle, please don't, I don't deserve that.

He studies me hard for a moment, swallowing… and I hear what's coming before he says it.

"Edward. You have a child… your daughter needs you." His eyes are hopeful… but… how can he expect me to… to so much as look at that thing… he seems to see where I am.

"Edward it's not her fault. It's not yours either. Edward she's still your daughter!" His eyes pierce me desperately.

"Carlisle… I know… but… I can't, I'm not as strong as you… I just can't" I can't look at him… I can't face any of what lies in the house behind him… I have to escape… I have to finish this now.

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